Sonoma Valley

Destination · Mexican, regional · Sonoma · $$

walk-in

Karen Taylor Waikiki nixtamalizes and stone-grinds her own corn, then cooks whole lamb over maguey leaves in a Caja China.

Solid · Sonoma

booking essential

Morgan Twain-Peterson pours a field blend off 35 acres planted in 1888, in a house built two years before that. Nearly thirty varieties share the vineyard, and he can tell you why.

Solid · Sonoma

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Four generations of Vellas have made jack by hand in a 1904 building on Second Street East since 1931. Bon Appétit put the Dry Monterey Jack among the top 25 cheeses in America.

Solid · Glen Ellen

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Chris Loxton makes Syrah in Glen Ellen and grinds his own empty bottles into vineyard sand on a machine outside the front door, about a hundred pounds a week.

Listed · Sonoma

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Lloyd Davis pours five wines seated, one on one, with a bite of food against every glass.

Listed · Sonoma

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Six generations of one family have farmed Rhinefarm since 1858, and the vineyard now carries Regenerative Organic Certification.

Listed · Glen Ellen

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Jamie Benziger took the cellar her father built when he retired in 2017 and makes small lots of uncommon varietals under painted labels.

Listed · Kenwood

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Vines went into this ranch in 1879 and it now runs to 1,850 acres with caves under it. Twenty-five dollars gets you the cave and a tasting; a hundred gets you driven to a deck at 1,400 feet.

Listed · Sonoma

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Luis Robledo and his sons came from Mexico in 1942 under the Bracero program to pick California's crops. Fifty-five years later the family was making wine off its own Carneros ground.

Listed · Sonoma

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Small-lot Rhone and Burgundian wines off Carneros, on an estate the winery runs on wind and solar. There is also a pickleball court above the Picpoul.

Listed · Sonoma

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Frank and Antonia Bartholomew bought this land in 1943 and discovered Agoston Haraszthy's house and original winery on it.

Listed · Glen Ellen

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Mike Benziger converted the Sonoma Mountain estate to Biodynamic farming in 1995, and Tribute in 2001 was the first Demeter-certified Biodynamic wine released out of Sonoma County.

Listed · Kenwood

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One of the few Sonoma Valley estates that still takes walk-ins, and three wines at the bar is $30. The chateau is 1920s and the single-vineyard programme dates to 1973.

Listed · Sonoma

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Dry-farmed Biodynamic vineyards on volcanic ground in the Moon Mountain District, and a chef cooking five courses against them for $225. Every tasting caps at six people.

Listed · Kenwood

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Damaris Deere Ford started this in 1974 and hired Helen Turley in 1993 to rebuild the Chardonnay. There are bocce courts, and the tasting is $60 an adult and $15 for children over seven.

Listed · Glen Ellen

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There is a Zinfandel block here planted in 1919 with eight varieties interplanted through it, and the estate tour drives you into it.

Listed · Kenwood

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Steve Law drove south of Lyon out of a Paris tech job, tasted Saint-Joseph and Cote-Rotie, and decided to make cool-climate Syrah in a county that plants Pinot Noir.

Listed · Sonoma

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Pangloss pours three labels of one house on the Sonoma Plaza, and the top flight comes off Moon Mountain: 49 blocks between 1,000 and 1,800 feet on six volcanic soils.

Listed · Sonoma

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Peter Mauel picks by taste and says so: not pH, not TA, not sugar, but walking the rows two or three times a day near harvest. Tasting is twenty-seven fifty, by appointment.

Listed · Sonoma

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The limoncello started it, and the town still turns out to peel for it. Adults and kids get through 3,500 lemons in an afternoon, and the catalogue has since grown past fifty bottlings.

Listed · Sonoma

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Bordeaux and Rhone varieties off Moon Mountain, and Repris sells most of them to members, or to whoever is standing on the property that day. Appointment only.

Listed · Sonoma

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Roche pours on a porch over Sonoma Plaza, with a shaded garden behind it, from a family that has farmed here since 1982. The barrels are at the other door.

Listed · Sonoma

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Gordon Biersch poured Marzen, Dunkles and Hefeweizen for twelve years before Dean Biersch and Dan Gordon sold the restaurants in 2000.

Listed · Sonoma

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David Bush built the pairing program at St. Francis Winery and then opened a small-plates room on the Sonoma Plaza.

Listed · Sonoma

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The estate above Sonoma takes members of the Scribe Viticultural Society and nobody else. Two formats: the Hacienda Tasting and the Knoll Picnic.

Listed · Sonoma

walk-in

Don Shone opened a market in Glen Ellen in 1963, and two decades later he and his brother-in-law bought the old Valley Mart on West Napa Street and put their name on it.

Listed · Glen Ellen

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Estate-grown fruit in small lots on Dunbar Road in Glen Ellen. No hours, no fee and no tasting terms are published anywhere, so call first.

Listed · Glen Ellen

13750 Arnold Dr. Details to come.

Listed · Sonoma

Norrbom Rd. Details to come.